UWN Issue 960 August 30-September 5, 2026.

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 960 for the week of August 30 - September 5, 2026.

In this Issue

  • Stonking Snapshot 3 released
  • Call for nominations: 2026 Ubuntu Community Council
  • Welcome New Members and Developers
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Hot in Support
  • Other Meeting Reports
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Ubuntu Circles! (LoCo) News
  • Ubuntu UK Local Community Visit to Bletchley Park – 7th November 2026
  • COSCUP x UbuCon Asia 2026 report from Euiseo Cha
  • Successful Instruction Session by Ubuntu Nepal in Collaboration with GNOME Nepal
  • Introduction to Open Source, Communities, Linux and GNOME: A Hands-on Session at MBMC College
  • Ubuntu Connect: Empowering Communities Through Collaboration
  • My Experience at COSCUP x UbuConAsia 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan
  • Software Freedom Day: Glasgow Gamer Club - Install Linux / Repair Cafe
  • DebConf 26 Travel Report
  • Ubuntu Circles! (LoCo) Events
  • Checkbox 7.5.0 stable release
  • Local Cloud Simulation with Multipass
  • “Bullet-Proof” KDE Initiative: How Ubuntu Studio Benefits
  • Introducing PPA Dependency Pinning
  • [Winners]: Stonking Stingray Wallpaper Competition
  • The 2026.08.31 Cycle is started
  • Dracut news for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and 26.10
  • Other Community News
  • What Say You
  • Ubuntu Cloud News
  • Canonical News
  • In the Press
  • In the Blogosphere
  • Other Articles of Interest
  • Updates and Security for Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04, and 26.04
  • Credits
  • And much more!

General Community News

Stonking Snapshot 3 released

Utkarsh Gupta on behalf of the Ubuntu Release team announces the third monthly snapshot for Ubuntu stonking stingray [26.10]. He gives us the links to use so we can download and give it a try. We’re told 35 images are included (with a new one too, we’re asked to guess which one), with a note that some are a little older though all should be updated prior to beta release. We’re also reminded these are not production ready but still alpha images.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2026-September/043643.html

Call for nominations: 2026 Ubuntu Community Council

Merlijn Sebrechts, on behalf of the Ubuntu Community Council, tells us they’re looking for motivated people to join the Ubuntu Community Council. We’re given details on who can apply and what is sought, how to apply, and more. The election process and dates are provided, with nominations open until September 26, 2026.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/call-for-nominations-2026-ubuntu-community-council/87356

Welcome New Members and Developers

Congratulations to this contributor!

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open: 137607 (+105)
  • Critical: 305 (-1)
  • Unconfirmed: 73320 (+79)

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started, please see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

Translations

  • Swedish: 99.99% (38/1220)
  • Albanian: 94.12% (22406/0)
  • Ukrainian: 89.09% (41565/1115)
  • German: 87.01% (49519/336)
  • French: 85.92% (53644/6504)

Hot in Support

Ubuntu Community Discourse Trending Top 5 Threads

Find more support at: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/support-and-help/306

Ask Ubuntu Top Questions

Ask (and answer!) questions at: https://askubuntu.com/

Other Meeting Reports

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Times shown are UTC unless otherwise specified. For more details and further dates please visit: https://ubuntu.com/community | https://discourse.ubuntu.com/upcoming-events

Ubuntu Circles! (LoCo) News

Ubuntu UK Local Community Visit to Bletchley Park – 7th November 2026

David Potter tells us of “an informal Ubuntu UK Local Community get-together at Bletchley Park on Saturday, 7th November 2026”. We’re told all are welcome to join, and we are given the time and meeting place details, and more - including ‘useful links’. We’re asked to let them know when we purchase tickets, so they can keep track of numbers, as if twelve or more attend a guided tour can be arranged.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-uk-local-community-visit-to-bletchley-park-7th-november-2026/86921

COSCUP x UbuCon Asia 2026 report from Euiseo Cha

Euiseo Cha gives us an event report on attending COSCUP x UbuCon Asia 2026, including his role as a volunteer at the Ubuntu Community booth (other reports on event were covered in UWN 959 and UWN 958). This is an extensive report, with many photos. Euiseo discloses his disappointment that a demonstration of a Kotonoha interpreter presentation that didn’t go as planned, his assisting in the Ubu4Cut photo booth, and promoting UbuCon Korea 2026. Euiseo tells us what he learned, tells us of a day trip, and thanks the event organizers, colleagues at the booths, and the Ubuntu Community.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/coscup-x-ubucon-asia-2026-report-from-euiseo-cha/86995

Successful Instruction Session by Ubuntu Nepal in Collaboration with GNOME Nepal

Aaditya Singh writes about a successful session on “Linux, Ubuntu & GNOME along with Git” by Ubuntu Nepal in collaboration with GNOME Nepal. We’re told more than 50 individuals attended the four+ hour open source session, and shown some photos. Aaditya thanks all who attended, and Ubuntu Nepal for the collaboration.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/successful-instruction-session-by-ubuntu-nepal-in-collaboration-with-gnome-nepal/87030

Introduction to Open Source, Communities, Linux and GNOME: A Hands-on Session at MBMC College

Sailesh Singh writes about the “Introduction to Open Source Communities, Linux and GNOME” session led by himself, Shraddha Tiwari, and Aaditya Binod Yadav; attended by about 50 undergraduate IT students. We’re told GNOME Nepal, and Ubuntu Nepal were introduced, as well as open source. A major part of the session also covered Git and GitHub. Sailesh also discusses some “challenges” encountered in the session, including students knowing some theory but having no practical experience, or using different OSes/setups with note that a ‘hands on workshop’ differs to simple presentation, leading to what they’ll improve next time. Sailesh thanks the college, and fellow instructors.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/introduction-to-open-source-communities-linux-and-gnome-a-hands-on-session-at-mbmc-college/87050/

Ubuntu Connect: Empowering Communities Through Collaboration

Bright Adams and the Ubuntu Community in Africa invite us to “Ubuntu Connect: Empowering Communities Through Collaboration”, which is a community meetup. We’re given details of this event (9 October) including the time, told what to expect, and more. [This is an updated event record, 15 August covered in UWN 950].

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-africa-meetup-workshop-2026/84507/1

My Experience at COSCUP x UbuConAsia 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan

Laksh Gambhir tells us he presented a talk at UbuCon Asia 2026, co-prepared with Shivay Sharma titled “Controlling Ubuntu with Local LLM”. Laksh touches on being a designer and attending prior UbuCon events, and then discusses this event before going into details on the Conference. This discussion includes some photos, and much on his role as a speaker (a first). We’re told about the closing before Laksh moves to what he took away from the whole event and the benefits of being there ‘in person’.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/my-experience-at-coscup-x-ubuconasia-2026-in-taipei-taiwan/87117/

Software Freedom Day: Glasgow Gamer Club - Install Linux / Repair Cafe

David Potter this time reminds us that 19 September is ‘Software Freedom Day’ and that Open Source Glasgow will be at The Gamer Club in Glasgow to help anyone wanting to install Linux on their laptops. A link for details, and more are provided.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/software-freedom-day-glasgow-gamer-club-install-linux-repair-cafe/87139

DebConf 26 Travel Report

Athos Ribeiro gives us an event report on attending DebConf 26, held in Santa Fe, Argentina. With brief details on the location, he moves to Venue and other Canonical attendees. Some hallway discussions, and Sessions are also touched on. Some focus is given to Debian PHP discussions with David Prevot, before moving to UEFI, Secure boot and related topics. Athos ends with brief details on DebConf 27, with some photos and links provided should we need more.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/debconf-26-travel-report/87361

Ubuntu Circles! (LoCo) Events

The following LoCo team events are currently scheduled in the next two weeks:

Looking beyond the next two weeks? Visit the respective Circles!/LoCo Team calendar to browse upcoming events.

Please also see:

The Hub

Checkbox 7.5.0 stable release

Massimiliano Girardi reports that a new version of Checkbox (7.5.0) is available in deb package (Stable PPA) and snap (stable channel). We’re given details of this release, and a now fixed regression that was impacting salvage jobs. With improved integration testing now in place this will now prevent this type of regression in the future. We’re told of a new feature, and reminded that you won’t be able to resume testing sessions after updating, so do close sessions prior to update. Commands to do this are provided. Finally we’re given a list of what’s new and the notable bugfixes in this release.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/checkbox-7-5-0-stable-release/87004

Local Cloud Simulation with Multipass

Christoph Niederberger reminds us Multipass “has long been the easiest way to launch and manage Ubuntu virtual machines on Linux, macOS, and Windows”, with this post outlining what’s coming in Multipass 1.17. We’re told of the preview of Multipass 1.17, told there is direct support for Debian and Fedora, and the long-term goal of evolving Multipass into a local cloud sandbox continues. Along with details, we’re given links for more, and including the fully open source code too.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/local-cloud-simulation-with-multipass/87055

“Bullet-Proof” KDE Initiative: How Ubuntu Studio Benefits

Erich Eickmeyer reminds us of Ubuntu Studio’s LTS releases, including an updated Ubuntu Studio 26.04.1 LTS only released recently. We’re reminded of the KDE Bullet-Proof initiative, backed by Kubuntu Focus, Techpaladin Software & KDE e.V. which will actually benefit Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS users too. Touched on is Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro options which can allow more bugfixes to reach our installs. We are invited to help with this project, as work is progressing on the next Ubuntu Studio 26.10 release. We’re told donations briefly increased after the 26.04 release, but they’ve now dropped off, so monthly monetary contributions would be welcome.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/bullet-proof-kde-initiative-how-ubuntu-studio-benefits/87092

Introducing PPA Dependency Pinning

Riad El Terek tells us that “PPA maintainers now have more control over where their build dependencies come from”. We’re told about PPA dependency pinning, and assigning priorities to PPAs that builds depend on, and more; including why dependency priorities matter for developers. We’re given details on where this can benefit us, and clues on configuring these priorities in Launchpad. We’re given a brief tutorial which includes some views of Launchpad options, commands and more, including links to more documentation.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/introducing-ppa-dependency-pinning/87067

[Winners]: Stonking Stingray Wallpaper Competition

Aaron Prisk personally thanks the “incredible contributors” who participated in the Stonking Stingray Wallpaper contest. We’re told there was as “incredible turnout” and thus the top four vote earners from each category will be winners. We’re told who these are, with links so we can look at their works. If you are a winner, you’ll receive an email shortly with instructions on what is required next.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/vote-stonking-stingray-wallpaper-competition/86906/18

The 2026.08.31 Cycle is started

Edoardo Canepa reports on the starting of the 2026-08-31 SRU cycle, which will cover August 31 through September 27 or four weeks. We’re given some important dates, and kernel (package) versions for releases in standard support, and more. Dates for the next cycle (Sep 28 through Oct 25) are also given.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/the-2026-08-31-cycle-is-started/87315

Dracut news for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and 26.10

Benjamin Drung gives us the Dracut news for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Ubuntu 26.10. We’re told of the work Benjamin has been doing over the last few months on this, with this post sharing the improvements. We’re reminded what dracut is, the switch over from initramfs-tools that existed many cycles ago and prior improvements before moving to the current use of busybox. Benjamin thanks Nadzeya Hutsko for helping with the busybox work, with some work waiting to land upstream which will then be appear in Ubuntu 26.10 that is planned to SRU back to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS later. We’re told we can test the changes too, with the required PPA link provided, before Benjamin moves to some benchmarks comparing stock 26.10, zstd-1 and busybox showing boot times, initrd sizes and more.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/dracut-news-for-ubuntu-26-04-lts-and-26-10/87327/

Other Community News

Call for Mentors for Outreachy (Dec 2026)

Felipe Borges makes a call for mentors for the Outreachy internship program (Dec 2026). We’re reminded what this program is about, and how project ideas will be selected based on available funding. Links are provided for more details; submissions are required by September 11, 2026. If we have questions we’re also told where to ask them.

https://blogs.gnome.org/feborges/cfp-outreachy-december-2026/

What Say You

Meet the Members: Irihapeti - I stuck around

“I had acquired a CD via the New Zealand edition of PC Magazine in a small-town supermarket magazine rack. I installed it and ran into a problem, like so many new users did. Ubuntu Forums was my first port of call, where I got help for what turned out to be a rather unusual problem. I stuck around and the rest, as they say, is history.”

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/meet-the-members-irihapeti/87029

Ubuntu Cloud News

Canonical News

In the Press

Rust-Based uutils Coreutils 0.11 Brings Faster Performance, Better Error Messages

Bobby Borisov writes about the release of uutils Coreutils 0.11. We’re reminded what this cross-platform tool is for, that the most visible change is a new diagnositic engine based on Ariadne: meaning errors now contain output like that of modern compilers. We’re told of improved performance, given a link to the changelog, and more.

https://linuxiac.com/rust-based-uutils-coreutils-0-11-brings-faster-performance-better-error-messages/

In the Blogosphere

Why Ubuntu 26.04 upgrades from 24.04 are delayed (until Sept)

Joey Sneddon relates the reasons for the delays in upgrades from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to Ubuntu 26.04. Quoting details from Canonical’s Oliver Reiche (see UWN 959), we are told why, and given a clue on when the upgrades will open; and thus told to ‘keep calm’ and wait. If we don’t want to wait; we’re told how we can force the upgrade, too.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/ubuntu-2404-to-2604-upgrade-delay

Ubuntu’s IRC support channels to be ‘sunset’, some aren’t happy

Joey Sneddon reports of the concern about IRC support for Ubuntu, with IRC not being mentioned in the release announcements of Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS some noticed (Joey looked and it hasn’t been mentioned since Ubuntu 24.10 too). We’re told of some questions some Ubuntu community members have, a response by Aaron Rainbolt (Ubuntu Community Council) in a discussion with it mentioned that there is a plan to ‘sunset IRC’ as an ‘official Ubuntu communications platform’. We’re reminded of the move to Matrix for communications, and given a number of links.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/ubuntu-irc-channels-official-sunset

Canonical joins the Open Secure AI Alliance

Joey Sneddon writes about Canonical joining the Linux Foundation’s Open Secure AI Alliance, giving details on what the alliance does, when formed (July 2026) and more. We’re told Canonical is only one of over 120 members involved in cloud computing, cybersecurity, enterprise, AI research labs, and more.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/09/canonical-joins-open-secure-ai-alliance

Mir 2.29 Released With Additional Wayland Protocols

Michael Larabel gives us details for the Mir 2.29 release. We’re told it includes new Wayland protocol coverage with some specifics within the details, plus the link to the release found on GitHub.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mir-2.29-Released

Ubuntu 24.04 splits firmware packages for faster updates

Joey Sneddon tells us about the splitting up of firmware updates on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, making files smaller due to the backporting of the firmware packages introduced in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. We’re given some details of this change and what it means, a list of the vendor specific ‘sub-packages’, and more.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/09/ubuntu-firmware-split-packages-24-04

Other Articles of Interest

Updates and Security for Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04, and 26.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 22.04 Updates

End of Standard Support: April 2027

Ubuntu 24.04 Updates

End of standard support: April 2029

Ubuntu 26.04 Updates

End of Standard Support: April 2031

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Further News

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Conclusion

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Credits

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Glossary of Terms

Other acronyms can be found at: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/glossary-uwn/42405

Get Involved

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